Family Troubles? Exploring changes and challenges in the family lives of children and young people

Two day conference exploring changes and challenges in the lives of children and young people

As the everyday family lives of children and young people come to be increasingly defined as matters of public policy and concern, it is important to raise the question of how we can understand the contested terrain between ‘normal’ family troubles and troubled and troubling families. This inter-disciplinary two day colloquium aims to promote dialogue between researchers addressing mainstream family change and diversity in everyday lives, and those specialising in specific problems which prompt specialist interventions, and to consider the implications for policy makers, service users and practitioners.

Much research on mainstream families incorporates data about how ‘troubles’ feature in the lives of research participants, but this may not appear in the main outputs of such studies. Similarly, applied research on troublesome family issues may incorporate data on how such family members carry on, and ‘normalise’, their everyday lives. For this conference, we invite such researchers to take a fresh look at their data to explore how ‘troubles’ feature in ‘normal’ families, and how the ‘normal’ features in troubled families. Contributors will address these questions drawing on research on a wide range of substantive topics including infant care, sibling conflict, divorce, disability, illness, migration and asylum-seeking, substance misuse, violence, kinship care, imprisonment and forced marriage.

Key questions include:

• If change (whether experienced suddenly or incrementally) is a ‘normal’ feature of family lives and the life course, at what point does it become experienced, or perceived, as troublesome, and why?
• What similarities and differences are there between different family members’ experiences of the same issue, and between different sources of change?
• Can the different events of family change be understood through a common conceptual framework or are some troubling experiences more deeply challenging to those caught up in them and those who seek to support them?
• If so, what is it that makes them different, how can we understand the nature of this difference, and how can we best respond?

Confirmed speakers and participants include: Professor Jill Korbin (Case Western Reserve University), Dr Janet Fink (Open University), Professor Michael Rutter (Kings College London), Professor Rachel Thomson (Open University), Professor Dame Janet Finch (tbc) , Professor Lynn Jamieson (Edinburgh University), Dr Penny Mansfield (One Plus One), Professor Ann Phoenix  (Institute of Education), Professor Andrew Cooper (Tavistock Institute), Dr Janet Boddy (Institute of Education), Dr Jacqui Gabb (Open University), Dr Helen Lucey  (University of Bath) and Dr Nicola Yeates (Open University). 

The conference also has a number of planned outcomes.

Conference Resources

Abstracts/Papers/PowerPoint Presentations/Biographies

Abstracts

Conference papers

Speaker Biographies